Cities And Housing Archive

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Master_Mavric wrote:

This comes back to that one question that keeps getting asked....

"Why do all player cities look deserted?"

... and to a lesser extent...

"How can it be fixed?".

Roads

I feel strongly that part of the "dead look" issue is do to the fact that Player Citys look over grown. They have ditches running thru them left and right, bushes in the middle of streets, trees everywhere but where we want them, and depending on what planet your on (Im from naboo) they are knee deep in grass. Some sort of road/pavement system would go a long way towards cleaning up this look. Id like to see it lay-able by a voted city official (mayor or voted city architect?) in 2x2 tile squares. Yes this would be alot of work for the personbuilding the road but, if you were to place huge sections at a time you end up with excess pavement (and there in excess lag) in places you dont need it.

Populace

Roads are the start of a fix but not the end. NPCs should have a small spawn rate (like faction bases) in player cities. Because NPCs tent to wander around some this would add a little bit of a lived in feel to player cities even when no players are around. Im not suggesting that a level 4 city should have 50+ npcs in it, just some. They should spawn within a certain range of city buildings, and should be a static number except in the city hall area.

City Max NPC Population at any given time....

Rank 1 5

Rank 2 10

Rank 315

Rank 4 20

Rank 5 25

Walls/Gates/and Arches

I dont know how easy this would be to implement but the art is there. Most static citys have Walls of some sort. Id like to see them added to Player Cities as well. I understand there is a griefing concern as well here. I belive a work around for that would be to make it so no more the 4 wall pieces could be chained without a opening (being a gate, arch, or nothing) and a wall can not be built within 2 spaces of a structure.These two ruleswould make it imposable to create a solid wall around anything short of maybe a personal harvester. Walls would be made is sections 3x1, gates would also be 4x1, and arches should be large enough to span a large road so id make them 6x1 making it possible for a4 tile road to pass under it.

Additional City Structures

By this I mean things like the cantina and med center things that arnt ment to have the door locked so to speak. I dont list the theator with because it needs a compleat revamp. A few new merchant building would be nice. The tents are a great idea. If a player sees a tent they know that most likely a vendor can be found within it. However for player citys this gives a flee market apeariance and there in adds to the run down look. A true mall building would also be nice to have. Guild halls will never be replaced as mall you can fitso many vendors into them they cant be. However a mall building that is long like the guild hall and has 8-10 rooms about the size of the large one in the naboo square would make a great mall building with each merchant haveing there own room for displays and such. I know a lot of professions would like a "workshop" type building. Let is give bonuses equil to that of the crafting aprons and have a differnt look then we have seen before. I also know the architects have had a few good threads on possable ways to implment combat rings, indoor shooting ranges, and a lot of other intresting building that would bring people into player citys.

Additional Player Structures

Here Im talking about resident type buildings. We have a good number of houses avalibe yes but unless you go to a adventure planet you see the same 3 houses over and over in player citys, small style one, small style two, and medium. some new floor plans in this area would be nice too because it would add more variety to the game.

Beautifaction

So far we have talked about buildings, roads, walls... ...large solid objects that add a varity and more realistic look to things. How bout some little soft items though that only serve to beautify the city or residence. I feel all buildings should have a bench added to the porch. One you can actuly sit on. In the case of large structures like City Hall, Cantina's, and Large houses to name a few, they should have two or more of these benches. The ability for a player to buy flower seeds from a BE and plant them at thier house terminal yielding a small flower garden beside their porch would look real nice. This area has alot of possabilitys without induceing much lag.

Broken or Bugged

Parks with benches - benches cant be sat on

Theator - Cant place items outside so the player theator is useless

Cloning Center - Last I knew when moving items inside the cloneing center they would transeport themselves to the clone cylinder and sometimes become unrecoverable.

Sales Tax - Again last I knew this was broke

Nice Stuff for Mayors

The ability to restrict the placement of factories and/or harvesters within certian raduses of the city or restrict it alltogeather

The ability to designate no build zones and give a mayor aproved over ride (would allow for better roads and the reservation of lots for city structures

In close player citys are great for the comunity. I comend the developers for the ideas that have been implmented already. These arejust a few suggestions that I have come up with or seen presented on differnt forum boards that I think would enhance player citys and make them more attractive to the player base.

Id like to thank anyone who has contributed any ideas I have stolen and presented here.

I would like to thank anyone who has taken the time to read this post and welcome constructive comments

Finaly I would like to give a big thanks to all SWG Mayors both Current and like me Retired. Its a big job, i salute you.

Thanks,

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Sethulas wrote:
Yeah I would love to see pavement added to player cities. They are cities, not villages. I think the only place that truley feels like they have normal looking cities is tatooine cause they aren't really supposed to have pavement there.

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PsychoticChipmunk wrote:

I know paps but I really think that my idea sort of gets around that. It wouldn't fight the grade anymore then a garden does. It would just be a lot smaller then a garden is but be relatively the same thing. You get a flat square that takes up space to prevent impossible home placement but is small enough to not make a raised road etc. Basically it's just giving us a smaller crappier garden then the Corellian sphere arrangement where it's little more then flat differently colored ground.

Of course this is possibly difficult to do due to the database issues and other such things so it'd be nice if a red name commented on it but who know's what will come of player cities when we get under the lime light after the dozen and 2 other issues that need to be addressed. Jascentia was told again and again that PA lot cost could not be reduced due to game mechanics then they found a way to get us down to 7 with JtL to get a master multi and a yacht out to the masses.

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stupid_people_happen . .
Pappi Inc Tailoring (home of the black tax) - Odi's meds and chef tissues - closed
- I support literacy, common sense, and apostrophes

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StarNick wrote:
Yeah come to think of it...a garden type pavement square...if its based off a garden, thats an object to load...and if its 1x1 size...shesh thats alot...

In Tranquil City's Main Avenue (15 squares long, 15 squares wide - 5 is road, 10 is two medium houses flanking for a total of 6 - 3 on each side)...theres 3 medium gardens inbetween and thus leave 15 square on each side (30 total) avaliable for 1x1 "free garden" pavement...

After I get it paved, and you try loading that...its 39 objects cramped in one small area...and thats just ONE road in the city, now imagine the City Hall w/ 4 statues, 1 fountain North...3 guild halls with 4 statues/1 fountain south, rows of more houses west and east, another road running perpendicular to the main avenue north with 4 more small gardens (2 on each side)....thats HUGE...

Tranquil City

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Well part of the idea is to not have massive paved plazza's but more greenspace garden areas instead. Have these be for roads and not straight out pavement. But then I'm biased and thinking of it along the line of how I'd want it to work out where my "streets" are and that. Like I said, an idea that needs to be polished up a lot in order to get a workable idea that is feasible and attractive.

On thebright side though, these wouldn't really be gardens per se. No steps, no flowers, no statues, no benches really nothing to render except for a drab grey (or compacted dirt brown) with a gridwork on it. (or slightly less dusty spots pockmarking it for tat/lok) It might be a lot of things to load, but these are data-disks on the floor of a house, not couches if you get my meaning.